The Enquirer

Affairs of France and Europe.

We have been favored by a friend with files of late French papers, from one of which the following Address is extracted in a rapid translation.—We recommend it to the careful reading and reflection of every thinking member of the American community. Replete with feeling, beauty and captivation it will more, much more, than re-pay the attention of the reader. It is a state paper of the highest interest, composed in the finest style, and evolving sentiments of the noblest patriotism. Some of the most striking passages we have taken upon ourselves to designate by italics.

What a rebuke! What shame, humiliation and obloquy it casts upon us! Look, Americans! look at the people of France—slaves as you consider them—victims of conscriptions and exactions—of ambition, foreign war and usurpation—Behold them unsubdued and undismayed by successive years of disaster and calamity, rushing to arms, seizing their standards and flocking to their Frontiers.—They disdain any but an honorable peace. Though they pant for it they will not take it on the terms of disgrace.—They will not negociate for it—with their enemies on the vantage ground—A campaign lost is not a motive with them for abandoning hostilities. The annihilation of their armies, the elements warring against them every coincidence of misfortune, casualty and fatality, the loss of nearly all their conquests, the invasion of their own territories—these are not reasons with them for suing for terms, for yielding to adversity—but motives for making head against it with redoubled energy, devotion and singleness of heart. But these are the people the English hate—and therefore so must we. Would to God we could catch at least some of their immortal enthusiasm!

Dem. Press.

Translated for the Democratic Press.

Conservative Senate.—Sitting of the 12th Nov. 1813.—The Senate assembled at 2 o'clock this afternoon, under the presidency of his Serene Highness the Prince Arch-Chancellor of the Empire.

His Excellency the Count Regnaud de Saint Jean d'Angely, Minister of State, Councellor of State and Count Mole. (Counsellor of State, were introduced. They presented three projects of the Senate's Consultum. The Count Regnaud de Saint d'Angely explained the motives to the first one, in the following manner:

My Lord-Senators: That memorable Session is still before you, when, fulfilling the august duties of Regent, wife, mother and Frenchwoman, the Empress attended you in order to explain the necessities of France.

These sentiments she excited in this place, were rapidly communicated to the extremities of the Empire, and still live in all hearts,

Whatever is French felt that in the actual situation of Europe, the nation could not hope to preserve its rank, to maintain its dignity, to provide for its security, to defend its territory, but by proportioning its efforts to overcome to the efforts united for its subjugation; but by raising the power of its armies, the extent of its resources beyond their mean, beyond the resources of the States coalesced against us.

But at that epoch, gentlemen, the defection of Bavaria was not consummated;—French Loyalty having done itself the honor to be incredulous of such a crime.

At that time also you were ignorant how the Saxons, in the heat of battle, had deserted their ranks in our armies, to occupy those which had been prepared for them beforehand in the armies of our enemies:

how the artillery, furnished and equipped from our arsenals, had been turned against our battalions, unexpectedly mowed down by those batteries which were destined for their protection.

These events, which are without example, except in the ancient history of the kings of barbarian Asia; these events, which have never, heretofore, obliged civilized Europe to blush for its cabinets, to afflict herself for her people, have had consequences, which a few weeks since could not be present to your views.

Nevertheless, gentlemen, and our enemies themselves acknowledge it, while counting their defeats and their losses, the French armies have sustained their ancient & imperishable renown in spite of every occurrence.

But by the force of circumstances, glorious victories have been rendered sterile, reiterated triumphs have become insufficient; and the unexpected and deplorable catastrophe at the bridge of Leipsic has added to the enemy's advantages, still fortunate once more to obtain a victory without a battle, trophies without danger, and success without glory.

At this new misfortune, every one of you must have perceived it, gentlemen, an universal sentiment of devotion, of generosity, has been manifested from all quarters.—In the midst of public grief, & even of private mourning, the hearts of the French have throbbed with indignation at the mere tho't of the hope the enemy has conceived that he will triumph over France, devastate our soil, and subject us to his laws.

The shout of alarm and of succour, uttered by our children, by our brethren, still under arms, still fighting gloriously on the banks of the Rhine, has resounded to the borders of the Seine and the Rhone, of the Doubs and the Gironde, of the Moselle and the Loire, on the mountains of Isere and Vosges, of the Alps and the Pyrenees.—

All the ancient French have anticipated their country's wants in their wars, have anticipated the dangers and the sacrifices which must prevent dangers and sacrifices otherwise so frightful in their extent, and the humiliations with which they must be accompanied.

What, indeed, would be our situation, gentlemen, if the enemies, who are already on some points of our frontiers, and who menace them elsewhere, should penetrate our territory? What peace would be left for us but the peace of slavery, or the peace of the grave? By what insolent, contumelious conditions would those powers, who are divided in their interests, and held together only by their resentments, revenge themselves on the splendor of our successes, the humiliation of their defeats, the necessity which forced them to submit to treaties they have violated, and even on that generosity which accorded them?

Judge then, and let France judge with you, gentlemen, by what they dared at Dresden, in the face of our armies united, imposing and victorious.

That Congress, the world's hope, provoked, desired by the Emperor, which like that of Westphalia in 1648, could alone balance and regulate the interests of Europe, was rejected, notwithstanding the persevering instances of the French cabinet.

Its apparent preparations were but the deceitful means under which were hidden the effectual steps of a general confederation.

The pretended plenipotentiaries were in fact but agents charged to continue the scheme already in contemplation for the campaign, and not ambassadors preparing plans of a wished for peace; impassioned men appealing to arms and to force, instead of justice and reason; men predetermined to discuss nothing, and affecting to dictate a capitulation instead of debating a treaty.

From that period they relied on those defections, of which we leave to a just posterity, to impartial history, the task of appreciating them; they trusted to those violations of treaties for which British gold had previously paid, which were prepared by threats, promised by fear, and which weakness permitted to be hoped for. They had not then arrived under the walls of Dresden, where soon after they experienced such striking reverses; and yet they were determined to dictate laws.

What would they do had they crossed the Rhine or the Scheldt, the Alps or the Pyrenees? I do not enquire what justice, I ask what management France might expect, what repose Europe might hope, from them?

The answer, gentlemen, is in the document of history. At the end of Louis the fifteenth's reign Europe thought herself balanced, crowns deemed themselves guaranteed, civilization supposed it had a boundary—the throne of Poland existed

An impious coalition was formed, A triumvirate of kings ventured to confide their ambition to each other, to mark their victims, to allot every portion of the Common prey; and Poland, first dismembered, disappeared entirely some lustrums afterwards from among the crowns of Europe.

What bitter regrets has not France experienced, what shameful reproaches has not France endured! France, whose political weakness suffered this perpetration, which has given rise since to results so great, so remarkable.

Well then, gentlemen, my question is answered by those reproaches, by those regrets,

Poland debased, divided, distracted, oppressed, is an awful and living lesson for France, menaced as she is, by the same powers who contended with each other for the shreds of the Polish monarchy.

The names of the Poniatowskies, the names of the last of the kings of the Poles, inhumanly thrust from his throne, the names of the last Polish commanders, so gloriously buried under his laurels, apprise you of what enemies we have to do with. and what his means are to obtain the peace we desire, and the repose all Europe covets.

They consist in repelling far from the empire that league which menaces its borders. If the combined armies should penetrate or establish themselves on this side of the Alps, the Pyrenees, or the Rhine, the day of peace could not light upon France. I would never rise for us till we had driven the enemy to a distance from our frontiers.

It is in order to satisfy this now, this need, this duty of the monarch and the people, that new forces are necessary, and that the Emperor demands them with confidence of the nation, which has offered them with so generous an alacrity.

In reporting the appeal which the Senate's Consultum authorises to classes previously liberated, and in ascending to the year 11, his Majesty yields to the empire of circumstances as well as to the counsels of justice, of wisdom, of humanity.

The men who will repair to their stations under the French Eagles, will unite strength to courage in support of honor; at the same time the junior conscription will acquire by serving in the armies of reserve, that vigor which they stand in need of to second the sentiments which animate them, and of which their last levies afforded proof in the field of battle that astonished our veteran phalanxes.

The national guards, whose turning out so honorably prevented danger, will return to their homes; the heads of families composing them will be restored to their professions and their labors.

Senators! the words which will issue from this place to summon to arms the descendants of those Franks, who, on so many glorious occasions, have refused the barbarians from the land of the brave, from the country of the arts, the centre of civilization—those words will be repeated by all fathers, by all mothers, by all sisters, by all brothers, whose children, husbands, brothers, are at this moment paying the due debts to their country. How many of them will France not enumerate? How many do I not know of myself, who, with their eyes still moistened with tears shed or calamitous losses, with hearts still throbbing with apprehension for those whom Providence has yet spared to their affections, think only of hastening to their relief the gallant spirits that survive behind.

Noble children of our beloved France!
Generous defenders of our glorious country!
who shut out towards the Rhine, towards the Pyrenees, the entrance of France to the English, to the Russians and their Allies, you shall not be left without assistance in the sacred and honorable struggle to which you are devoted—yet a little while and numerous battalions of men powerful in strength and in courage, shall hasten to help you to repossess yourselves of victory and free the soil of France.

Thus it is, gentlemen, that surrounded by all the might of the nation, the Emperor, as moderate as when he granted to Austria the peace of Leoben and of Campo Formio, in the hope of signing that of Rastadt—generous as when he raised thrones and endowed them with his conquests—after the victories of Jena and of Austerlitz—thus it is that the Emperor may prepare peace with wisdom, weigh its conditions with justice, and sign it with honor.